Ex-HUD Aide Charged With Conspiracy, Fraud

Former top housing official Deborah Gore Dean was charged Tuesday with 13 felony counts, including conspiracy and perjury, in the influence-peddling scandal at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Prosecutors allege that Dean, who was executive assistant to then-Housing Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., used her position at HUD to enrich herself, her family and five co-conspirators by steering housing money to developers represented by favored consultants.

The grand jury indictment supersedes one filed in April and includes the two charges made in that earlier filing.

Dean said in a telephone interview that she is not guilty. “These things just did not happen. They’re fabricated,” she said.

The indictment mentioned five unindicted co-conspirators. It identified none by name but said one was a former U.S. attorney general who owned the Global Research International Inc. consulting firm--a reference that describes the late John N. Mitchell.

In a statement released by her attorney, Dean said independent counsel Arlin Adams “does not have one shred of evidence that links me corruptly with Mr. Mitchell. Nor can Arlin Adams prove that I used my government office in any way to benefit the Gore family.”

Mitchell, who died in November, 1988, was the first former attorney general to be convicted of a crime. He served 19 months in prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

Mitchell was known to have had a close relationship with Dean’s widowed mother, Mary Gore Dean. Deborah Dean noted in a letter to Adams this month that she had occasionally referred to Mitchell as “dad.”

The new indictment charged Deborah Dean with three counts of conspiracy to defraud the government, four counts of perjury and four counts of covering up her role in HUD funding decisions.

The indictment also included the April 28 charges--one count each of receiving an illegal $4,000 payment and making a false statement to a Senate committee.

At the time, prosecutors said those charges were brought to meet the statute of limitations and that the principal case against Dean would be filed later.

Her lawyer, Stephen Wehner, noted Tuesday that the new indictment did not charge Dean with receiving any money herself except for the $4,000 described in the April indictment.